Green Papaya Marathon

Green Papaya Marathon
North Reading, MA to Waltham, MA
Thursday, March 14 2013

Results
26.2 mile marathon-distance run
3:26:35 (7:53 pace)Route: here

Run Report

Between jobs and with a lofty summer goal in the TARC 100, I decided to use my unstructured time away from work wisely by getting in a marathon distanced run. When Heather told me that she was meeting her brother for lunch mid-week at the Green Papaya Thai restaurant, my mind started working and, after playing around with gmap-pedometer.com, I had my goal. I would run marathon distance from my house in North Reading to the restaurant in Waltham.

Starting at my house, I ran due west straight into a rather steady and chilly headwind. Due to the cold morning (made colder by wind chill) and two days in a row with 10+ miles, including one with speed, I struggled for the first 8 to 10 miles with my pace in the low 8:00’s. Although I was not looking to run fast — or any given pace — low 8:00’s was rather slow, and it didn’t exactly feel smooth.

I followed a route west on Rt. 62 straight into the town of Bedford, where I hooked up with the Minuteman Bike Path. By this time I started feeling better and was running a pace comfortably in the 7:00s. Took MM bike path south into the well-known town of Lexington, where I then went due south-west toward Waltham. One trip around a reservoir and I reached my destination at the Green Papaya Thai restaurant, where Heather and her older brother were waiting for me. We had a nice lunch. Then home.

Pace started in the low 8:00’s and progressed faster to the mid 7:00’s, all comfortable. Best part was that I could have logged more miles, especially if I eased back on effort a bit. This bodes well for my attempt at the Boston Double.